Are You Ready for Operator 4.0?

Tucked within the emerging technology enclave in Brooklyn, N.Y., is a little-known company putting state-of-the-art technology like 3D printers and collaborative robots (cobots) to work to create a manufacturing production facility that can compete with the likes of traditional injection molders.

At Voodoo Manufacturing, a couple hundred low-end 3D printers churn out product from dawn to dusk. With human operators tending to the printer farm, Voodoo saw only a 30-40 percent printer utilization rate—dropping to nothing overnight when operators weren’t around. All of that changed when Voodoo put a Universal Robots UR10 cobot into play.